FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO SUSAN B. ANTHONY¹Best known for her partnership with Elizabeth Cady Stanton during the late nineteenth-century woman suffrage campaign, Susan Brownell Anthony (1820–1906) first became an activist through the temperance and abolitionist movements in Canajoharie and Rochester, New York. She spent her childhood in eastern Massachusetts, where she attended Quaker schools and became a teacher. In 1845 she followed her family to western New York, where they had fled to escape financial difficulties and to join a radical branch of Hicksite Quakers that included the Posts, Hallowells, and Porters. Debates with Abigail Mott, whom she had met sometime before 1845, led Anthony to join the Unitarian church shortly after her arrival in Rochester. Anthony continued to teach for another four years, but her involvement in the Daughters of Temperance and the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society soon took most of her time. By 1851 she also became interested in the women’s rights movement, and a common friend, Amelia Bloomer, introduced Anthony to Stanton. For the next half-century, she and Stanton tirelessly devoted themselves to the struggle for women’s access to education, professions, and politics. Between 1856 and 1866, however, Anthony continued to work for the end of slavery, serving as an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, organizing antislavery conventions in Rochester, and publishing a newspaper that endorsed suffrage for blacks and women. Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, 3 vols. (Indianapolis, Ind., 1898–1908); Stanton and Anthony, Papers, 1:xxvi–xxviii; Blake McKelvey, “Susan B. Anthony,” RH, 7:1–24 (April 1945); ANB, 1:547–50.

[Rochester, N.Y. October 1850].²Anthony later erroneously assigned a date of September 1850 to this letter. Given that Douglass writes that he did not receive Anthony’s eulogy in the month of September, a later date for the letter has been conjectured.

FRIEND SUSANAnthony, Susan Brownell

Best known for her partnership with Elizabeth Cady Stanton during the late nineteenth-century woman suffrage campaign, Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906) first became an activist through the temperance and abolitionist movements in Canajoharie and Rochester, New York. Anthony spent her childhood in eastern Massachusetts, where she attended Quaker schools and became a teacher. In 1845 she followed her family to western New York, where they had fled to escape financial difficulties and to join a radical branch of Hicksite Quakers that included the Posts, Hallowells, and Porters. Discussions with Abigail Mott, whom she had met sometime before 1845, led Anthony to join the Unitarian Church shortly after her arrival in Rochester. Anthony continued to teach for another four years, but her involvement in the Daughters of Temperance and the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society soon became her priority. By 1851 she also became interested in the women's rights movement, and a common friend, Amelia Bloomer, introduced Anthony to Stanton. For the next half-century she and Stanton devoted themselves tirelessly to the struggle for women's access to education, professions, and politics. Between 1856 and 1866, however, Anthony continued to work for the end of slavery, serving as an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, organizing antislavery conventions in Rochester and publishing a newspaper that endorsed suffrage for blacks and women. Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, 3 vols. (Indianapolis, 1898-1908); Stanton and Anthony, Papers, 1:xxvi-xxviii; Blake McKelvey, "Susan B. Anthony," RH, 7:1-24 (April 1945); ANB, 1:547-50. :

I have received the lines respecting our deceased friend Abigail Mott. Had those lines come to hand in the month of Abigails decease³Abigail Mott died on 5 September 1850 while visiting her sister, Phoebe Mott Willis, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Lib., 13 September 1850; Sterling, Ahead of Her Time, 159; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 4:272n. I should have most gladly inserted them—but they come at a time and in circumstances which make their publication now of doubtful utility. There are

considerations connected with the well known relations subsisting between myself and the departed friend which makes a eulogy on her—forgiving disposition—somewhat out of place in the “North Star”.⁴Douglass’s reluctance to publish the eulogy to Abigail Mott stemmed from a quarrel of unknown origin between himself and Abigail and her sister Lydia that occurred sometime between 1848 and 1850. Reference to this matter is exceedingly painful to me. First because I esteemed our departed friend as I have seldom esteemed any other person—and secondly because the matter involved is, one which I do not feel at full liberty to explain. Yet if you think it best in the circumstances to press the publication of your lines—I will of course publish the letter and your name as the author of them.⁵Because many issues of the North Star from the years 1850 to 1851 have not been located, Douglass’s publication of Anthony’s eulogy cannot be verified.

I am with great respect,

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

ALS: Ida Husted Harper Papers, CSmH.